United States

Team U.S.A.

The crest looks good, but there are
better American designs (ie: ’60, ’72, ’02, ’10)
and the rubberized stars and laces are terrible.
Additional photos and jersey information here.

The Americans have raised expectations after a gutwrenching loss in Vancouver in 2010, falling in overtime to the host Canadians, 3-2. Here’s an excellent oral history of the game as it was remembered by the players themselves.

Now the United States is out to prove that their showing in the last Winter Games was no flash in the pan and that they’re here among the top teams in international hockey to stay.

The leap taken forward by the Americans in Vancouver has left a lasting impression on its fan base and has raised the standard the management expects to meet overseas.

Perhaps more than any other country, the United States plays plays its system very deliberately and with careful design and strict discipline.

Here’s a look at the group trusted with bringing a gold to the United States:

Head Coach: Dan Bylsma (Pittsburgh Penguins)
Associate Coaches: Peter Laviolette, Todd Richards (Columbus Blue Jackets), Tony Granato (Pittsburgh Penguins)
Executive Director: David Poile (Nashville Predators)
Management Group: Ray Shero (Pittsburgh Penguins), Brian Burke (Calgary Flames), Stan Bowman (Chicago Blackhawks), Paul Holmgren (Philadelphia), Dale Tallon (Florida), Dean Lombardi (Los Angeles), Don Waddell (Pittsburgh)

The man running the show is Poile, who won’t be able to attend the tournament due to injuries suffered when he was hit by a puck a week before the games. Shero will be acting GM.

ESPN.com’s Scott Burnside (@ESPN_Burnside) was one of two writers allowed to sit in on the Team USA executive staff meetings leading up to the roster announcement on New Year’s Day.

Burnside wrote a lengthy, detailed piece on the decision-making process that created quite a stir after the writer published candid quotes from Burke, Poile, Tallon and others on players that were eventually cut.

I highly recommend reading the piece yourself, but here are a few excerpts. Bold indicates my own emphasis.

Never before has a group of American hockey minds confronted the depth of talent this group confronts.

Poile would later comment on the difficulty of the decisions the group had to make. In the big picture, this speaks to how far American hockey has come; that perennial 30-goal scorers and top-pair defensemen are cut from the team speaks to the depth of the country’s talent pool, more impressive now than ever.

Bylsma and his staff have produced a manifesto of how they want this U.S. team to look and act…This team must be fast, aggressive, smart and patient, and those are qualities that must be reflected in the selection process. A team cannot assume that identity if the players selected do not possess those qualities.

As I noted, the Americans play a distinct game. It’s a gritty style that relies on puck possession, physical play, two-way skating and scoring from the wings. Bylsma and his assistant coaches had a blueprint and sought to match it in conjunction with the management group.

The group establishes a selection of players they consider “locks” to make the team. Through the ebb and flow of the NHL regular season, a player’s stock rises and falls. Even players viewed as a “lock” in October may not make the team come January, as was the case with this roster.

When it was all said and done, Ryan Suter, Paul Martin, John Carlson, Justin Faulk, Kevin Shattenkirk, Ryan McDonagh and Brooks Orpik were defensive “locks”.

Cam Fowler beat out Jack Johnson and Keith Yandle for the final spot on the blue line.

Offensively, Ryan Kesler, Dustin Brown, Patrick Kane, David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Zach Parise, Joe Pavelski, Phil Kessel, James van Riemsdyk, Max Pacioretty, Derek Stepan, Paul Stastny and Ryan Callahan were seen as “locks”.

That left T.J. Oshie, Blake Wheeler, Bobby Ryan and Brandon Saad for two spots, which went to the former two players.

A few characteristics were paramount to the group:

• Smooth and hard-skating forwards
• Defensively responsible players the coaches can trust
• Even four left-handed and four right-handed defensemen
• The team will carry five centers
• The goaltenders will be the three best; no one is taken in a ‘backup’ role

Here is some analysis from the folks at NHL Network immediately following the televised announcement:

This piece by Mike Halford (@HalfordPHT) looks at the Team USA snubs, but here I’ll focus on who did make the roster.

Forwards

The Americans are bringing a little of everything to Sochi offensively. Take a look at their  HockeyProspectus statistics:

Player	Team	Pos	OGVT	DGVT	GVT	RC	Competition
OGVT: offensive goals versus threshold, 2013 and 2013-14 combined DGVT: defensive goals versus threshold, 2013 and 2013-14 combined GVT: goals versus threshold, 2013 and 2013-14 combined RC: Relative Corsi: shot attempt differential when on ice vs. off-ice, 2013-14 (zero is average) Competition: Level of competition based on Corsi relative to quality of competition, 2013-14 (zero is average)
Patrick Kane	CHI	RW	25.3	2.7	28.0	1.7	0.4
Phil Kessel	TOR	RW	18.4	0.0	18.4	7.5	0.9
Joe Pavelski	SJS	C	12.6	4.8	17.4	4.8	0.3
Derek Stepan	NYR	C/W	10.9	5.8	16.7	4.7	0.9
Max Pacioretty	MTL	LW	13.0	3.2	16.2	17.9	0.6
David Backes	STL	C	8.2	6.5	14.7	-4.6	1.7
Zach Parise	MIN	LW	9.5	4.7	14.2	19.1	1.2
Blake Wheeler	WPG	RW	11.2	1.8	13.0	3.2	0.7
T.J. Oshie	STL	RW	8.0	4.0	12.0	0.9	1.6
Ryan Callahan	NYR	RW	5.2	3.9	9.1	5.7	0.5
James van Riemsdyk	TOR	LW	8.7	0.0	8.7	4.2	0.7
Dustin Brown	LAK	LW	4.0	4.6	8.6	8.8	0.9
Paul Stastny	COL	C	6.6	1.4	8.0	8.4	2.0
Ryan Kesler	VAN	C	3.1	3.2	6.3	3.2	1.3

The American depth up front is truly astounding given the presence of veterans like Jamie Langenbrunner on the 2010 team.

Perhaps its my exposure to American media, but it seems the American forward combinations are as transparent as any heading into tournament play, perhaps even more so now that practice has begun:

Brown-Kesler-Kane
Parise-Backes-Oshie
vanRiemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel
Pacioretty-Stastny-Callahan
Stepan, Wheeler

Of course everything is subject to change, but if these lines work I would imagine the American contingent would be thrilled.

The top six can play with any group in Sochi, and having two big centers like Kesler and Backes can dictate the pace of the game. Both will be asked to play against players like Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Henrik Zetterberg, Evgeni Malkin and others.

The third line could be the most productive third line in the field; as Sean Gentille (@seangentille) points out, the trio has combined for 84 goals this year. As a third line of forwards, that number is ridiculous.

If Pacioretty gets hot and scores as a fourth-line player or Blake Wheeler gets into the mix, watch out. Pacioretty is a scorer’s scorer.

I see a big tournament for him; having players like the Americans have in your bottom six is something only two or three teams in this tournament can claim.

They don’t have all the names the Canadians do, but the Americans have the ability to play as well up front as any team in the field.

I expect strong forward play for the United States from the get-go.

Defensemen              

The U.S. defensive corps is second only to the Canadians in my opinion, featuring some of the best NHL talent in the tournament.

They have a legitimate 30:00-per-night horse in Ryan Suter and balance throughout the lineup. Bylsma’s own Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik are regular partners and are expected to play together.

Young newcomers Justin Faulk and Cam Fowler were somewhat controversial picks, and their roster spots will be the most closely criticized should the Americans fail. Like Babcock, Bylsma wanted an even left and right-handed group. Here’s a look at the Team USA defensive statistics:

Player	Team	Pos	OGVT	DGVT	GVT	Rel Corsi	Competition
Ryan Suter	MIN	LD	9.6	7.8	17.4	-3.3	1.3
Ryan McDonagh	NYR	LD	8.1	9.0	17.1	-4.3	1.5
Kevin Shattenkirk	STL	RD	10.4	5.7	16.1	10.1	-0.5
Paul Martin	PIT	LD/RD	5.8	4.2	10.0	-7.0	0.8
John Carlson	WSH	RD	5.2	4.3	9.5	0.3	1.4
Cam Fowler	ANA	LD	4.5	2.4	6.9	0.4	1.4
Brooks Orpik	PIT	LD	-1.2	7.1	5.9	-6.5	0.9
Justin Faulk	CAR	RD	2.0	3.8	5.8	2.8	1.2

This is a meticulously selected group of defensemen who have shown responsibility in both ends and an ability to play physically, slowing the opposing offense down, while also moving the puck up the ice quickly. They have a quick first step, can create offense with one pass or act as a one-man breakout.

After early practices, the pairings looked like this:

McDonagh-Carlson
Fowler-Suter
Shattenkirk-Martin
Orpik-Faulk

Something tells me this group is where the influence of the coaching staff’s collective opinion can be seen at its strongest. It’s a youthful group with two  defensemen from Bylsma and Granato’s own top two pairs in Pittsburgh.

The young defensemen could be the difference for the Americans, or their undoing, but the American brain trust had seen plenty of both Fowler and Faulk before both comfortably secured a place on the roster.

Goalies

The crux of their silver-medal-winning team from Vancouver in 2010, the American goaltending will be crucial should the red, white and blue hope to repeat or improve in the Sochi games.

Ryan Miller has been fantastic in a terrible Buffalo locker room this season, acting like a real pro’s pro in a tough losing situation and putting up steady numbers while facing a lot of shots. We’ve seen what he can do on the big stage.

Jonathan Quick, the favorite headed into the season, has overcome injuries to be ready for the tournament but he and Miller will duke it out in the opening days of practice to determine a winner. Bylsma’s mum on the subject after early practices.

Jimmy Howard, an international veteran, was given the opportunity to push the competition, although he is not expected to play. Here’s Team USA’s goaltending stats:

Player	Team	GGVT	DGVT	GVT	Career Sv%
Ryan Miller	BUF	24.3	-3.6	20.7	.916
Jimmy Howard	DET	18.3	0.2	18.5	.917
Jonathan Quick	LAK	-1.8	2.0	0.2	.914

Whoever wins this competition, I expect the starting goalie for Team USA to be among the top two or three netminders in the tournament. My hunch is that Ryan Miller takes the reigns.

When the Americans roared to a silver medal four years ago and bypassed the rest of the world’s expectations for them, they set themselves up for a new standard in Sochi.

Now it’s time to deliver.

As Burnside says in a later post:

How many times did Brian Burke, the general manager of the 2010 team, tell reporters in the lead-up to the Vancouver Games that no one gave the Americans a snowball’s chance in a sauna (or some variation on the theme) of winning a gold? He created a barrier between the high internal expectations and the modest external expectations. That no longer holds true and everyone knows this team won’t sneak up on anyone. That’s a different mindset, but given the experience this team brings to the table — especially in goal and up front — the Americans should embrace heading into this tournament among the group of nations expected to compete for the gold.

This is not just winning a few games or finding the podium. This is a team with expectations of gold and a roster and system to meet those expectations.

To cheer them on, fans will have to get up early, as the Americans have three early morning games as part of Group A:

vs. Slovakia, Thursday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 am ET on TSN and NBCSN
vs. Russia, Saturday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 am ET on CBC and NBCSN
vs. Slovenia, Sunday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 am ET on NBCSN

Here’s a little video to get fans excited for the tournament (H/T @D4stot):